For starters one has two options to choose from - the hi-res or the low-res one. The hi-res option gives a clear picture of the short, green-haired and big-eyed newscaster but brings with it a total out-of-sync audio and video. The low-res one gives a pixelising picture but gives a lot more sync between the audio and video. Both however fail to surface on machines which are not of the Pentium III and above vintage.

Ananova - as has been written about - has been created by Britain's Press Association news agency, which has renamed its new media division as Ananova Ltd. The UK-based Digital Animations Group developed the character and the technology around her.

Of what use is the lady? Well, for one, the Digital Animations group is keenly looking at her to becoming a globally-recognised brand and becoming the newscaster of choice on mobile interactive devices. In fact, the creators say that Ananova will not replace regular newscasters on television.But there's no doubting some at least will try. For two reasons: one for the novelty value, and second for lower costs and replacing some real-live newscasters. Some newscasters can set back a broadcaster by a few million dollars depending on their popularity with viewers. It's quite probable that some of them may take her on because of the lower licence fees that the Digital Animations Group is planning to charge users.

There's another aspect: a lot of Web sites, which are looking at broadband as a play to attract eyeballs. These guys will surely find Ananova useful. This apart she brings with her a whole lot of content services like email news delivery around topics as varied as business, law, education, health, politics and entertainment.

Then she also has a search engine. Will some Indian Internet sites also go for her presence on their front pages? Quite likely. After all, a lady robot newsreader can prove attractive and a crowd puller.

Online ad-spend
What are the real figures for advertising online? We have heard claims ranging from several billion dollars to more conservative figures. Now we have another estimate. This time from PricewaterhouseCoopers which has estimated that the online ad spend is closer to $4.6 billion-a growth of an awesome 141 per cent over the $1.92 billion reported for 1998, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Internet Ad Revenue Report.

The report was compiled from data supplied by companies selling advertising on the Internet. Growth in the fourth quarter of 1999 was an awesome 161 per cent to $1.7 billion. The big spending categories online in the fourth quarter were: consumer-related (31 per cent), financial services (17 per cent), computing (16 per cent), new media (12 per cent) and business services (7 per cent).

And guess what? Those irritating banner ads continued to dominate with 53 per cent of the ads sold in the fourth quarter being banners. Sponsorships accounted for 25 per cent of the ad spend while interstitials accounted for four per cent and email for three per cent.

Top 50 Web sites
PCDataWorld has released its top 50 Web sites pecking order. Let's take a look at the Top 10. Leading the pack is yahoo.com with a 5.3 per cent increase in traffic over February to 39.5 million unique visitors.

It was followed by aol.com with 37-odd million unique visitors, a 6.5 per cent increase over February figures. The No 3 spot was occupied by geocities.com - the free homing base for Webbies - with a 6.9 per cent increase to 29-odd million visitors.

MSN.com was placed fourth with a 11.5 per cent visit in traffic to 27 million unique visitors. Go.com was a surprising entrant in the Top 5 with a 206.4 per cent growth in traffic to 23 million unique visitors from the 7.6 million recorded in the previous period. Lycos was sixth-placed with 20 million visitors as against 19 million. No 7 was Passport.com with 18.7 million unique visitors, angelfir.com was eighth with 17.65 million visitors, Microsoft.com ninth with 17.65 visitors and Netscape came in the tenth spot with 17.5 visitors.

The author is CEO of indiantelevision.com, India's cable satellite, and terrestrial television portal. Email: television@vsnl.com.